Save Article

EU Loses Clout Over Caspian Gas

Feb 22, 2012 8:45 am ET

By Jan Hromadko and Alessandro Torello

After years of competition among pipeline projects that want to carry gas from the Caspian region to consumers in Europe, the race for access to the region’s huge natural gas reserves is finally under way. But it isn’t necessarily moving in the direction the European Union would desire.

Getting Caspian gas has been a top priority of the European Union’s energy strategy, because it would mean diversifying supplies away from Russia, the bloc’s single largest supplier.

A pipeline connection with Central Asia could open a “corridor” for gas imports from one of the world’s most energy affluent regions with potent producers like Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Iraq, and, in the long-term, possibly Iran.

But the most recent developments suggest the EU–which has spent the best part of the past decade in support of opening the Caspian gas market–is losing control over events. In consequence, Europe could be left without control of the pipeline infrastructure that ships the gas to European customers. Its supply security would instead depend on the companies selling the gas.